THIS IS THE PREVIOUS YEAR (2025) CFP, FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY

IUP English Graduate Organization 2025 Spring Conference

Landscapes of Language and Literature

Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)’s English Graduate Organization is proud to announce our 2025 EGO Spring Conference. The conference will be held on March 21st & 22nd 2025, on campus in Indiana, PA and simultaneously in a hybrid format.

Language and literature create vibrant ecologies. Whether language, literature, or pedagogy, each thread intersects within an ever-changing ecosystem, rooted in time and space yet capable of transcending both. Place and language not only shape human and more-than-human memory and transmission but also challenge the logic of the Anthropocene, offering emerging perspectives, meaning, and context for interpretation (Pollin-Galay; Harjo; La Tray; Richardson; Bennett). These exchanges use language to bridge time and distance, fostering metaphorical and biological connections between reader and writer, even between the living and the dead. Across physical and virtual environments, in every language, words carry meaning, bridging gaps, creating new connections, dissolving arbitrary borders, and sustaining intersubjective exchanges.

Given these considerations, what is a landscape and what is its significance? Is it a lens through which we read a work, the conditions that give rise to it, or a dynamic interplay between text and context? What happens when location-specific symbol systems are read in another location—or when speakers of one language find themselves on unfamiliar shores? Join us as we explore new questions, connections, and intersections.

The EGO board invites and encourages the submission of scholarly, pedagogical, and creative pieces as well as pre-formed panels that engage with the topic of landscape in either a linguistic or literary sense. Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Language and Linguistic Landscapes 

• Translation of Place (Cross-Cultural Readings and Exchanges)

• Symbol Systems Beyond (and Within) Borders

• Writing and Teaching Writing in Other Languages

• Literature and Teaching Literature in Other Languages

• Ecologies of Language in Composition and Rhetoric

• Literature and Ecological Thought

• Nonhuman and More-Than-Human Perspectives

• Digital Landscapes and Literary Time Travel

• Environmental Ethics and Nature Writing

• Ethics, Identity, and Travel Writing

• Climate Fiction and Eco-Criticism

• Romanticism, Mysticism, and the Sublime

• Multilingual Poetry and Composition

• Creative Writing and Poetry

• Literature and Environmental Activism (Humanities Activism)

• Aesthetics in Literature and Composition

• Indigenous Literature and Ecological Knowledge

• Identity and Production (Scholar-Teacher, Creative Scholar, etc.)

• Posthumanism and Landscape

Please submit a 250-300 word abstract and a 50-word bio to iupgradego@gmail.com by February 1st for consideration.

This conference invites emerging scholars and graduate students from both inside and outside the IUP community, while intentionally privileging the development of students in IUP English graduate programs. If you have a paper that you want to present but have doubts about whether it fits in at this conference, please submit it anyway and/or contact EGO President Joshua Calandrella at bcpbc@iup.edu. We will work with you. This conference is both a showcase and a growth opportunity.

A downloadable .PDF version of this CFP can be found here. 

This CFP was also posted online at the upenn CFP site.